A (very unserious) plan for Summit League expansion

Author: Matt Privratsky

Since the departure of Western Illinois just over a year ago, the Summit League has been sitting at 9 members – an inopportune number for the scheduling and travel of an athletics conference. In all likelihood, the Summit League may simply add one new member to replace outgoing Western Illinois and get its membership back up to 10. But – despite truly no one even remotely asking me to – I thought it might be fun to dream a bit bigger. In the era of the most aggressive, ambitious, and wild college conference expansion of all time, I came up with a (sort of just for fun) plan to transform the Summit League into a massive, Midwestern powerhouse mid-major athletics conference. Let’s jump in. 

State of the Summit & Ground Rules
As I mentioned above, the Summit League currently sits at 9 members: UND, NDSU, SDSU, USD, KC, Omaha, Denver, Oral Robert, St Thomas. As you can see via the map below, membership is largely concentrated in the Upper Midwest but branches west to Colorado and south to Oklahoma. For this proposal, I used a few basic ground rules:

1. We are doing this for fun
2. We care only about women’s soccer
3. We care a bit about quality of program
4. We want every team to have a travel partner
5. We want the map to at least vaguely make sense
6. We assume all current members remain members
7. We are not assuming any DII/DIII go DI
8. We are assuming schools want a non-conference schedule of some kind (considered going to an 18-20 team league and using a single table, conference only schedule. Instead went with 16 teams so there is room for a few non-conference rivalries to maintain)

The Super Sized Summit League
Let’s start with the most Minnesota angle to this scenario: getting St Thomas a travel partner. Most Summit League opponents aren’t too far away from St Thomas’ home in St Paul, MN, but none are what you’d describe as natural travel partners. The two most logical options could be Northern Iowa (UNI) or Drake – both 3-ish hours away. I’d selfishly love to watch more of both programs and either could make a good option for the Summit, but as a tie breaker we’ll go with UNI because it’s a little closer. 

Out west, I considered building out an entire four team “Colorado wing” of the Summit League castle (in an even more aggressive buildout maybe you do) but instead went with Colorado State. Air Force and Northern Colorado are both nearby but CSU had the higher RPI last year so they won the tie breaker. 

Down south, I assume Omaha and Kansas city pair up with Oral Roberts in need of a new partner. There are lots of other DIs within driving distance but Missouri State wins out due to a solid 2023 RPI and its general proximity “on the way” for many of the current (and newly proposed below) members. 

​Now, with 12 members in place all with natural travel partners, I get into the true expansion for expansion's sake. I’ve long felt the play for the Summit League that’s both highly ambitious but also somewhat logical would be to go after longtime Horizon League powerhouse Milwaukee. Though the top of the Horizon League has tended to be stronger than the Summit, the bottom is far far weaker – leading to an average RPI of 198 last year for HL vs 174 for the SL. And the new Summit League would be even stronger (more on that later)! Come on Panthers, come west! And while we’re in Milwaukee, let’s grab Marquette right alongside MKE. 

If we’re venturing all the way to Lake Michigan, we might as well grab a couple more nearby to add some super convenient trips for our 4 new eastern-most members. In my head, for some reason, DePaul and the Big East seemed too likely to stick together (truly cannot tell you why Big East teams felt off limits in my brain but they did) so we’re going with Loyola Chicago and Valparaiso just a bit into Indiana as our second pairing to the east.

Final Thoughts
Although this specific exercise was almost entirely for fun, I do think it makes sense for some of the many midwestern mid-majors to consider ambitious expansion like this. For example, just within our rough driving distance (plus the conference opponents of those in driving distance) there are Summit League, Missouri Valley, Horizon League, Big Sky, Mountain West, and Ohio Valley members and more! 

Now, I’m very confident the way I’m thinking of this is nowhere near the way actual athletic directors or conference commissioners are – thus the multiple “for fun” and “not serious” tags throughout the piece. But the pieces I do think folks should take away are:

• Silly speculative “fan fiction” should not just be for “power 5/4” conferences
• Expanding the Summit League into new markets could be exciting
• Some conference consolidation/shifting among midwest mid-majors could make sense

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